This episode we talk about the elder of the two brothers, who took the throne after the unfortunate death of his younger sibling.  He ruled for about a decade, at least if the Chronicles are to be trusted, so what exactly happened during his reign?

Listen, and for more information, check out the blog at https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-68

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is Episode 68: Ohoke the Elder.

First things, first, shout out to Hirumuto for supporting us on Patreon.  If you’d like to join them, check out Sengoku Daimyo on patreon.com or you can always check us out on our Ko-Fi site.

A bit more housekeeping.  First off, this episode does have mention of suicide, and while we shouldn’t be going into great detail, just want to make sure that is out there.

Also, this episode we will cover the reign that followed Woke, aka Kenzo Tennou, but as we’ll see, there are plenty of gaps.  Although this next reign is said to have spanned ten years—an entire decade—there really isn’t a lot of detail in places.  That said, we can see what we might be able to deduce based on other information that we have up to this point.  I’ll try to be clear where I’m making conjectures, rather than just what our historical or archaeological evidence tells us.Now, we left off last episode with the death of Woke, aka Kenzo Tennou, the younger of the two sons of Prince Ichinobe.  He had reigned for only three years, and in that time he had tried to find justice for his murdered father, but also had engaged in—possibly inaugurated—regular poetry gatherings on the third day of the third month, and he may have also been responsible for instantiating worship of Takami Musubi, possibly bringing his worship from Nimna, on the Korean Peninsula.  In addition, at some point in there, we saw others from the archipelago causing trouble on the peninsula—though whether or not they were connected to the Yamato court I couldn’t actually say.

One can only imagine Ohoke’s grief at the death of his younger brother.  Unfortunately, there were many things that could take someone before their time, and it would not have been unusual for an elder sibling to outlive their younger sibling—or even for parents to outlive their children.  And yet, Ohoke would have had to balance his grief with the realities of the situation.  After all, there were no other heirs to take the throne, so it was finally on him.

He had been appointed as Crown Prince during the reign of Shiraga, but he had abdicated his position in favor of his younger brother, and there had actually been two relatives who had sat on the throne since then—first his sister or aunt, Ihitoyo, and then his younger brother, Woke.  Now, though, it was his turn to take control of the Yamato court.

All in all, it looks like this took about eight months, from his brother’s death to Ohoke taking the throne.  In the past we’ve seen where there was some time from one ruler to another, as it was often contested.  But here we see where it apparently wasn’t contested, and yet there still seems to be a gap.  This can probably be explained in several ways.

First off, there may have been a mourning period.  Even if a tomb mound had already been arranged and constructed, from what we can tell of burial practices at the time, there was some period where the body would be laid out before burial.  This looks as though it could have lasted up to two years, presumably as various rituals were conducted and even just the determination of a successor.

There are also various ascension rituals.  While Ohoke likely did not have to go through all of the same rituals that occur today there are some we know about—and possibly others we don’t.  One of the more important festivals appears to be the Daijosai—the first Niinamesai, or feast of first fruits, of the reign.  I suspect that it was Ihitoyo’s untimely death before conducting the Daijosai that effectively disqualified her from consideration as one of the sovereigns.  In effect, she had not completed the ascension ceremonies.  This is mostly just supposition on my part, however.

There is also the act of constructing a new palace.  As I’ve noted in past episodes, every sovereign selects a new location from which to set up their palace. These palace names actually  seem to be how the sovereigns were referred to before the creation of the posthumous names that we see in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki.

There has been some conjecture as to why the palace would be moved so often.  After all, it seems like it would have been much more efficient to simply use the palace of your predecessor, as it was already built and the court was set up around it.

Typically the reasoning behind moving the palace is given as an issue of ritual purification.  Drawing on Shinto belief, blood and death are seen as a type of spiritual pollution.  While a site can be cleansed and purified, it may have been easier to simply move everything to a new building, or a new complex.  There may be some examples of this back into the Yayoi period, with examples of some homes apparently collapsed and possibly burned, perhaps deliberately for some sort of ritual purpose.

Yet it isn’t like they just built a new building next to the old.  If the Chronicles are to be believed, they picked up the entire court and moved it to another location altogether.  Granted, most of the time up to this current sovereign, the traditional locations, if they are to be believed, remained somewhere in the southeast corner of the Nara basin, with only the occasional foray outside—once, briefly, to Lake Biwa, and once out to Naniwa—modern Ohosaka.  Then there is the somewhat confusing period of Tarashi Nakatsu Hiko and Okinaga Tarashi Hime—aka Chuai and Jingu Tenno—where they at least temporarily set up out near or on Tsukushi, modern Kyushu.

It is possible that for some of these, the palace was already built—especially if the new location was in an area that was a political stronghold of the incoming sovereign.  These may have already been locations that the successor was living, either part time or fully.  We really don’t know much about how a quote-unquote “palace” differed from a residence—or at least the residence of an elite member of society.  We do make several assumptions, however, that it would be larger, likely made up of multiple buildings.  There is also some mention of certain types of architectural features, like possibly the roof shape. 

It also isn’t exactly clear what the court looked like in terms of people— who were the permanent members, constantly in attendance, and what went on, day to day.The later court would be filled with scribes.  The written word would be a big part of governance.  Whether writing out or copying various works of importance.  I doubt, however, that Ohoke’s court was filled with nearly as much scribal activity, though there were likely individuals trained in the written word, carrying on traditions from the Baekje scribes who had come over long before.

There were the toneri and uneme—male and female attendants from various families who would look after the needs of Ohoke and his family, while also possibly bending an ear now and then.  That family included any wives and consorts he had, who would have been lodged in their own buildings, most likely, housed on the same compound, but also given their own separate domains, based on descriptions so far.

Was there a purpose-built building from which to govern, and conduct the rituals of the state, or was it basically just the front of Ohoke’s residence?  I suspect the former, based on what we know of the layout of the palace at Makimuku as well as later palace dimensions.   There were likely special buildings for gathering in—whether raised buildings or even a large muro, or pit house.

How about the Ohomuraji and the Oho-omi, the influential families or clans that we’ve heard so much about?  They appear to have resided in their home areas.  These were families with names like the Hata, the Wani, the Mononobe, and others, such as the Ki and the Heguri.  Most likely I suspect they served as local magnates, traveling as needed for various ceremonies and festivals, which were, in their own way, a vital piece of government.

Ritual was still an important aspect of the role of the sovereign and the court, though during Wakatake’s reign he seems to have had less of an explicit role in ritual, focusing more on his military role.  This may indicate a movement away from the sovereign leading the ritual and instead delegating the ritual activity to others—like how the previous sovereign, Woke, the younger brother, designated various families to worship Takami Musubi.  This wouldn’t have necessarily been an immediate change, but over time various families came to take charge of different areas of ritual.

Correctly performing the rituals, which were likely thought to bring in good harvests or protect from natural disasters, was an important part of what was considered good government by the people.  The sovereign had particular duties in this regard, but so did the other elites, whose own positions may have relied on their participation.

Did these powerful families maintain residences near the sovereign?  Did the designation of a new palace also bring a wave of subsidiary construction?  It is difficult for me to say.  Still, the Nara Basin is large, but not so large that it cannot be traversed.  East to west, on foot, it is perhaps a three to four hour journey.  Even north to south is probably doable in five to six hours, depending on the location.  From Isonokami shrine to Naniwa is perhaps eight to nine hours, if you don’t stop too long to eat something.  On horseback these distances would be considerably shorter.  And so it would not be too difficult to arrange for people to gather as necessary—at least for those who were present in the region.  These distances may have then also formed the de facto extent of direct Yamato control. 

The composition of these early courts were certainly different from later times, when all of the major noble houses would come to reside in the capital city.  But then again, administration of the land was likely much less tightly controlled—one of the reasons we still have to wonder about the general evolution of the Yamato “state” at this point in time.  Certainly it seems that the sovereign Wakatake, aka Yuuryaku Tennou, had been able to accomplish much, and we know that he had elites in both the eastern and western reaches of Japan who were, in some fashion, subservient to him.  Still, after his death, and with the fall of the Liu Song on the continent and the destruction of Baekje by Goguryeo—even though it would reconstitute itself—there was not a solid foundation for Yamato.  And so, in all likelihood, while the court had the trappings of authority, that authority in the late 5th century was limited. 

The fact that the throne had seen three sovereigns over the course of seven years does not speak well to any consistency.  Ohoke himself would be the fourth.  This is a far cry from the over two decades of rule under Wakatake.

As I said, we have no clear understanding of court life at the time, but I imagine that it had the trappings of a supreme paramount – a single sovereign ostensibly in charge - but perhaps with some question as to the actual effectiveness of this system.So,  it is in this environment that Ohoke set up his palace—his court—at Hirotaka, in Isonokami, site of the shrine of the Mononobe clain.

There are a couple of other palaces that are mentioned in the Nihon Shoki as being used by Ohoke, by the way.  One at Kawamura, and the second at Takano, in Shijimi.  Shijimi you may recall from the origin story of Woke and his brother Ohoke, and I suspect it is connected with the hastily constructed brushwood palace built by Wodate when he first discovered the two brothers.  It is also possible that these were summer or winter retreats—vacation homes, as it were.  We’ve seen similar mention of staying at various palaces for long durations of hunting or similar activities.

Anyway, at the Hirotaka palace, Ohoke installed his wife, Kasuga no Ohoiratsume, as his queen.  Unlike his younger brother’s wife, Naniwa no Wono, we have touched on Kasuga no Ohoiratsume before, though mostly focused on her mother.  Back in episode 60 we talked about how Wakatake had a one-night fling with an uneme, one of the ladies attendant at court.  This was Woguna, the daughter of Kasuga no Omi no Fukame.  As you may recall, when a child was born of their union, Wakatake initially refused to accept it, but eventually he could not deny that the daughter was his own, and he raised up her mother’s status, such that she received the title of “Kimi” or “Gimi”, becoming known to us, today, as Woguna Kimi. 

It is said that even at a young age, Woguna Kimi’s daughter had her father’s bearing.  This daughter, as you may have guessed, was Kasuga no Ohoiratsume.  A few key points here.

First, it is extremely interesting to me that she is the daughter of Ohohatsuse Wakatake, aka Yuuryaku Tennou, given how Wakatake had killed Prince Ichinobe, the father of Ohoke and his younger brother, Woke.  So this means that Ohoke ended up marrying the daughter of his hated uncle, the man who murdered his father.  Assuming the Nihon Shoki is correct, I have to assume this would have been a strictly political marriage.  On the other hand, Ohoke may have been more forgiving given the fact that it was a son of Wakatake, Prince Shiraga, who had brought him and his brother back into the family fold.

It is also interesting here that we don’t really have much of a name for Kasuga no Ohoiratsume.  “Kasuga” would appear to be a family name or even a locative—not that there was necessarily much difference at the time.  “Ohoiratsume”, meanwhile, is basically a fancy word for “Royal Princess”.  We’ve seen this same title used again and again in the narrative, and overall it tells us very little.

Putting this together with the story of her birth, however, it brings up a plethora of questions.  Was she actually of royal birth?  Or was the story of Woguna Kimi added to ensure she had the appropriate bona fides to be queen - perhaps even an attempt to ensure that Wakatake’s own lineage continued, given his impact.  Of course, we may come back to this in a later episode, when we look at just what lengths the Chroniclers went to in order to justify the idea that there was an unbroken royal lineage all the way back to the gods in Takama no Hara.

Either way, there certainly seems to be a lot of justification going on.  Ohoke, the sovereign, brought forth from obscure exile in the boonies.  Kasuga no Ohoiratsume, the unexpected daughter of a one night stand between Wakatake and a court uneme.  One would be totally within their rights to question what was going on in the Chronicles.

Speaking of which, from here on out we are mainly relying on the Nihon Shoki for the bulk of the anecdotal information.  The Kojiki, from this point on, relegates itself to mostly providing genealogical information—naming the sovereign, their queen and consorts, and their offspring, as well as things like the location of their palace and their mausoleum.  And even that only covers up to a point—ending with information for the early 7th century—still another hundred and fifty or so years.  We’ll use it where we can, but just realize that even as our accounts get more reliable, we end up with even fewer sources to compare against.

Speaking of the genealogical information, we are told that Ohoke and his queen, Kasuga no Ohoiratsume, had seven or eight children.  Most of them were daughters, but there was one son, Wohatsuse no Wakasazaki, who would become the next Crown Prince.  There was also another child, named Mawaka, whom the Kojiki claims was a son, but the Nihon Shoki claims as a daughter.  This may be simple confusion over the graphs used in the text or an attempt to justify later succession decisions—it is impossible to know for certain.  The name certainly looks like it could be either male or female, to me.

There is at least one consort mentioned as well:  Nuka Kimi no Iratsume.  She was the daughter of Hiuri or Hifure, of the Wani no Omi.  She had a daughter that was either Kasuga no Yamada or possibly Yamada no Ohoiratsume.  The Kojiki gives her father’s name differently, but that may be a mistake that was made with a later entry for a wife of Kimmei Tennou, whose father’s name is given as Wani no Omi no Hitsuma.

Again, names are of great interest to me.  The fact that this other consort, who is said to descend from the Wani no Omi, has a daughter who is given the name of “Kasuga” suggests to me that there was a fair amount of interaction with that family or area.  Perhaps there is something else I’m missing.  But I would expect that a Kasuga no Iratsume would be the daughter of Kasuga no Ohoiratsume, personally.

Speaking of queens and consorts, what happened to Naniwa no Wono, the queen to Ohoke’s younger brother, Woke, aka Kenzou Tennou?  Normally, a former queen would be raised up, although this does not seem to have been automatic, and is most often the case when the former queen was also the mother to the current sovereign, thus making her the Queen Mother.  Of course, Naniwa no Wono was only Ohoke’s sister-in-law.  Furthermore, it seems that they may not have been on the best of terms.

Now, remember, everything we’ve heard about the brothers, Ohoke and Woke, they were tight.  The bond between them was strong, and they are constantly described as deferring to one another in just about all things.  There is no indication of any bad blood between them, and Ohoke directly promoted his brother to the throne.

For Naniwa no Wono, however, her position as queen may have gone a bit to her head.  The Nihon Shoki gives us a taste of this in the form of an anecdote from the younger brother, Woke’s, reign.  It was at a banquet where both Ohoke and Woke were present.  There was a melon on the table, but no knife to cut it with, so the sovereign, the younger brother, Woke, asked his wife, the Queen, Naniwa no Wono, to get a knife and hand it to his older brother, the then-Prince, Ohoke.

Wono did as she was bade, but when she handed over the knife, she remained in a standing position.  After all, she was the queen, and Ohoke was merely a prince.  Later, when she poured out the sake for her princely brother-in-law, the Queen again did it from a standing position.

From what I can discern, this probably wasn’t improper, given her position at the time, but it wasn’t exactly respectful.  Likely it was expected that she would lower herself, possibly to her knees, to hand over both the knife and the sake.  This kind of abasement is still seen in various traditional arts.  When bowing, for example, the lower one bows, the deeper the respect being shown.  Likewise, even when handing things over to someone there can be layers of meaning depending on whether one uses one hand or two, and whether one grips the item being handed from above or from below.  Depending on the social situation, there can be a host of meanings in just how one performs various actions.

The lack of respect for Prince Ohoke might have been overlooked if Wono herself had produced a male heir to the throne.  After all, then Ohoke and his issue would have continued as merely royal princes.  But without a male heir, Ohoke came to power, and we are told that Wono was afraid for her life because of the disrespect she had shown to him before.

Eventually, she couldn’t live with the sword of Damocles hanging over her any longer, and Wono took her own life in the ninth month of 489.

There is a bit to unpack here, and I suspect quite a bit went unsaid in the Chronicle.  After all, from what I can tell this all happened a full year and change after Ohoke came to the throne, and over three years since the previous sovereign, his brother Woke, had died.  If Ohoke was planning revenge for any disrespect shown to him, previously, then he certainly was taking his time with it.  Perhaps he believed that revenge was a dish best served cold, but if so, he had basically put his on ice.

The only other indication that there was something may have been the failure to name Naniwa no Wono as a Dowager Queen.  That may have been the kind of subtle and embarrassing blow that may seem like mere oversight, but could have been quite the political blow.  Later, we will certainly see the kind of cutthroat politics that took place in the “hinter palace”—aka the women’s quarters.  The politics behind supplying an heir to the throne often grew quite intense, with women playing out the family politics that infested the court.

And so perhaps that was enough of a snub such that Naniwa no Wono felt she had no other recourse left to her.  Certainly it wouldn’t be the last time we see someone take their life in order to preserve some shred of their honor. Unfortunately, we just don’t have enough details to know for certain.

And that is perhaps the biggest theme of this reign:  we don’t have enough details.  Ohoke reigned, we are told, for some ten years.  And yet we have scant details of what happened.  Just a few things each year.  We are told about Naniwa no Wono’s suicide, and the establishment of the Isonokami Be attendants and the Saheki Be.    We are also given a tantalizing account of two men, Ikuba no Omi no Kashima and Hohe no Kimi, who were thrown into prison for “crimes”, but we aren’t told what they did, though they did die in there.

So given that we don’t have much else to discuss, that bit is interesting - what can we deduce about this ?

First off, these individuals are not simple commoners, at least if their names are to be believed.  The kabane of “omi” was one of the most prestigious, indicating a family of some influence in the court.  The “Ikuba” family shows up in the records throughout the 6th century, but not necessarily afterwards.  They were first recorded back in the time when Ohosazaki, aka Nintoku Tennou, was sovereign, and we talked about their origin story back in Episode 53.  They seem to have a connection with the Korean Peninsula in some way, shape or form.

I don’t see Kashima, of the Ikuba no Omi, elsewhere in the Nihon Shoki.  There is Kashimada, or Kashima Fields, in the “upper road” of Kibi, or Kibi no Kamitsumichi.  It is unclear, though, whether there is any connection between the individual and the location.

Hohe no Kimi is a bit more of a head-scratcher.  I can’t find any other reference to him.  “Kimi” would likely indicate a local lord.  After all, the sovereign was “Oho-kimi”, the “Great Lord”.

I’ve seen some suggestion that the crimes referenced may have been effectively political in nature—perhaps they posed a challenge to the sovereign.  That might make sense as to why the line was included in the Nihon Shoki, but there is one other piece that makes this somewhat intriguing, and that is the mention of imprisonment.

In early Japan, the penal system was not exactly what it is today.  In fact, in most places in history, crime and punishment have been handled in very different ways.  Today we may think about jail, imprisonment, and fines as the primary forms of punishment for criminals, but this hasn’t always been the case.  For one thing, jails and prisons require an infrastructure—you need people who can run and maintain such an institution.  Temporary incarceration is one thing, but long term imprisonment is something else.

It also has to do with the purpose of your punishments.  Are you trying to prevent further transgressions?  Are you attempting to find some way of balancing the scales—justice, as it were?  Or is there something else?

Monetary fines may be enough in some instances.  In ancient England, a weregild, or man price, was instituted, so that when someone was killed, the killer would be forced to pay a fine to the family.  Now I get how that could seem like it is just a way for rich people to buy their way out of corporal punishment, and to some extent it is.  But it is also important to realize that up to that point the main form of justice was retributive killings.  So if someone from family A kills someone from family B, then someone from family B kills the killer, or some other member of *their* family, which leads to someone from family A going after family B again… well, you can see how that gets messy, and it isn’t exactly helpful in maintaining a stable society.

Early punishments that we’ve already seen in the Chronicles include fines, tattoos, exile, and, of course, death.  We’ve also seen that the Mononobe were, at least back in Wakatake’s day, the apparent executioners as well as guards and general military support to Yamato.

Up to this point, however, incarceration appears, to me, to have been a temporary solution—such as when Wakatake detained the Silla delegation because of accusations that they were disrespecting the court uneme, back in Episode 56.  They were thrown in prison, but we might better just refer to it as jail.  Once they were questioned, they were released.

And so, returning to Ohoke’s reign and the two people in question: I have to wonder whether imprisonment was their punishment or if they were basically awaiting some kind of investigation into their guilt?  Did they die before they could be questioned and punishment meted out?

This is all simply conjecture.  Unfortunately, I doubt we’ll find much archaeological trace of judicial structures—or at least nothing that we can definitively prove.  If people were kept in a raised building, it would look like any other.  If they were kept in a pit building, then it might be similar.  I doubt that they were imprisoned in anything like a cellblock as we might imagine it today.

Now, in another one of the more fulsome accounts from this reign, we have the mission of Hitaka no Kishi to the continent, once again seeking out artisans for the court.  This is how families like the Hata and the Aya are said to have come over, bringing their knowledge of silk and weaving.  In this instance, Hitaka was able to bring over artisans from Goguryeo with an apparent understanding of special leather tanning techniques.  However, that isn’t the actual story, but just the background.  You see, he had someone with him named Araki.

Now Araki might be all but forgotten if not for his wife and an extremely convoluted set of marriages and births.  Because when he left with Hitaka no Kishi his wife, Akitame, lamented her lot in life in fine poetic form:

“Woe’s me, my youthful spouse!

                 For to me he is an elder brother,

                And to my mother too, an elder brother.”

When someone asked her what she meant by this she produced a cryptic response worthy of some kind of mountain top guru:  “Think of the autumn garlic’s ever-clustering growth.” – which, for any Spirit Island fans out there, also sounds like an awesome new Spirit.  Just sayin’.

Now, first off understand that the sinograph used for “garlic” in this case seems to refer to older forms of onion-like bulb vegetables, and might more properly be referring to something similar to a spring onion.  And while onions and garlic today are largely planted in the fall and harvested in the spring—at least in the northern hemisphere—it is unclear what exactly is meant by “autumn” here—and where the vegetable in question would be in its lifecycle.  I suspect, however, that it refers to the period when the bulb might be budding off new growth, a phenomenon that would create bunches of onions, all clustered together.  That would at least fit the description given by the anonymous person in the Nihon Shoki who heard of this and went on to explain how it related to the complex family situation that the woman in question was in at the moment.

You see it started when Funame of the Naniwa Jewelers’ Be married Karama no Hataye.  Together they had a daughter, named Nakume.  Nakume married a man named Yamaki, of Sumuchi, and together *they* had a daughter, named Akitame.

Unfortunately, Karama no Hataye, Akitame’s grandfather, and Nakume, her mother, both passed away.  Her father, Yamaki decided to remarry, and since Akitame’s grandmother, Funame, was now a widow, Yamaki decided that he should just marry his own mother-in-law, Funame, which was apparently not quite Kosher.  I’ll try to put a chart of this together, not that it makes it any easier.

Anyway, Akitame’s grandmother, Funame, lay with Akitame’s uncle, Yamaki, and they had a son, Araki.

And Araki married Akitame, despite the fact that he was both her half-brother, through their father, Yamaki, as well as the brother to Akitame’s mother, Nakume, through Akitame’s grandmother, Funame.  And thus her declaration, which I’ll repeat once more:

“Woe’s me, my youthful spouse!

 For to me he is an elder brother,

                And to my mother too, an elder brother.”

 

The only thing that is a bit off then is the term older brother, but commenters on the Chronicles seem to have suggested that the terms today translated as elder brother or younger sister were, at the time, simply used for any brother or any sister.

This incestuous family relationship is just one of the last entries in Ohoke’s reign.  The rest basically just notes how he made his son, Wakasazaki, Crown Prince, he had one really baller year—though in what way they don’t say.  And then Ohoke passes away in the tenth year of his reign.

And as such, that closes the chapter on Ohoke, aka Ninken Tennou.  Next episode we’ll look at the reign of his son, Wakasazaki, later known as Buretsu Tennou.

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